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"Formating" a new Hard Drive for MAC

I bought an External Maxtor 750GB hard drive. I am trying to Format (correct word?) for Macintosh.
In Disk Manager, I select ERASE, give it a volume name, request format "Mac OS Extended - Journaled", and now it is "Stuck" and the message at the bottom next to the barberpole says "UNMOUNTING VOLUME" ... am I really "stuck", or does it just take a long time to initialy Format that size drive?
It has been about 30 minutes .. the Message "Unmounting Volume" is making me wonder if maybe it hasn't even started Formatting ...

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darron_chapman

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bleggee

ASKER

Yep, was stuck. I returned the drive and have the same problem. This time I tried just using it as a "Time Machine" backup, letting Time Machine control the copying and formatting. It got about 1/2 way thru the process then quit with an obscure error.
I have several 300GB and 500GB drives, they all work perfect. I am wondering if I hit some bug with the larger drive size (750GB)
Does anybody have any experience with a large drive on a Mac (Leopard) that works? The one I am havig trouble with is a Maxtor External 750GB "One Touch Plus 4" drive

darron_chapman

I haven't seen this before. Sounds like you could have a defective drive. I don't have one that size myself, but Leopard can theoretically handle drives much larger than that, when they exist. Have you tried to choose other options when formatting? If so, and still no luck, then I would try to exchange it for another and see if that alleviates this problem.

ahoffmann

do you get some error messages in /var/log/system* ?

bleggee

ASKER

Thanks all. Could not get the AMxtor 750GB External to work, called Apple Support and Maxtor Tech Support. I tried 3 different ones from teh store. Ended up getting the 500GB Maxtor External, which I already have 2 of. Works like a charm. Don't know what's up with the 750GB.
Brian

bleggee

ASKER

PS I dont see a /VAR/LOG/SYSTEM folder ... I am running Leopard 10.5. Maybe the log are somewhere else on Leopard?

&quot;Formating&quot; a new Hard Drive for MAC

"Formating" a new Hard Drive for MAC